Lies Behind
by Variastrix
Summary: Three months since Sherlock left him and old hurts from John Watson's past are cropping up in his place. Nearly a year since the chitauri invasion and Tony Stark still hasn't gotten a hold of the whole team player thing. Dean and Sam Winchester are diving into a hunt that Dean isn't sure they're exactly qualified for, and Cas tagging along isn't really helping his focus.


**This is a threeway crossover between BBC Sherlock, The Avengers movies, and Supernatural. All feedback is welcome :)**

Jacob Clark was not an intelligent man. His story was the ultimate cliché; Rich boy inherits money, blows it all in less than savory business ventures and gambling, gets in with the wrong crowd, talks without thinking, and owes the wrong people a lot of cash, et cetera et cetera. But rather than going through a long, arduous journey to discover his morality and escape thuggish loan sharks and possibly get a girl at the end like in all the movies, Jacob Clark found someone to fix it for him. He didn't know it, because again, Jacob Clark was not an intelligent man, but the chain of mysterious voices on the phone offering deal after deal to get him out of his messes were just drawing him deeper into the spider's web.

He followed every cliché villainous request. Drop of the mysterious briefcase there, deposit such-and-such amount of money in this overseas bank account, tell so-and-so that he has 4 days left, yadda yadda yadda. Until one day, the calls stopped coming, as though he had been dropped off the evil henchman call list. It worked for Jacob Clark of course, no more running about doing all these errands and jumping every time the phone rang. Maybe it was all over. Maybe some other debt-ridden sod had gone through his B-movie plotline, killed off the mob boss and married the plucky love interest. Jacob Clark just knew that as long as he was free nothing mattered. But men like him never realize just how expendable they are in the big scheme of things. If he's not the big hero, he's the background villain, the grunt, the loose end to be snipped when the boss needs to erase his tracks.

So one night, three months after one James Moriarty played his last game, three months since the henchman stopped getting phone calls, Jacob Clark woke up tied to a chair in a basement room, bound and gagged under the light of a single bare light bulb.

"Evening." Jacob's eyes shot straight to the source of the voice and found himself eye to barrel with a sniper rifle. The rifle gave a steely chuckle before lowering and revealing the harsh, tiger of a man smirking behind it. "Don't look so nervous there, why would I waste a good shot on you? I'm the best shot there is you know, an' your barely three feet in front a me! I'm your host here mate, don't start off insulting me." And now Jacob was confused. Who the hell was this? Some lunatic no doubt, the man looked like he hadn't slept in an age. The crazed look in his red-rimmed eyes coupled with the slash of a grin wasn't exactly making him feel any more welcome than being tied to a chair did. It was very, very lucky for Jacob that he'd been gagged, saying all that out loud probably would not have gone well.

"I'm bettin' you're knocking a thought or two in that empty head of yours now, eh?" tiger-man continued, keeping Jacob's wide-eyed stare. "Did you think you were safe, Clark? Think the devil'd forgot your debt, miserable little weasel that you are, and that you'd get to slink off into the sunset, eh? Well your borrowed time is up, Mister Clark. You're my last assignment. My last little bit a fun before its all over, got it? Final orders and all that, kinda like a will or sommat. And I am gonna have some fun with you." Now Jacob knew the man was crazy. What had he done to deserve this nut job after him? He'd followed all the orders! He'd done all the odd little jobs and barely even talked back at all! Jacob knew this, would've said it, screamed it really, but the gag prevented that. All he could seem to do was shake in his extremely uncomfortable chair and widen his eyes at the rabid predator in front of him.

"You see Clark," Jacob did not want to see, he'd give anything not to see this man pacing like a cat at the edge of the flickering yellow light. "Despite what they said about me back in the forces," This man had been in the army? "I am a loyal man. I know my place, know my orders and I follow them. Long as I respect who gives 'em and all that. So I'm being a soldier again here, Clark. I'm doin what's right, you hear me? Carrying out his last wishes, paying my own debts." Jacob wondered who 'he' was, who had caused tiger-man's voice to grow soft and deadly even as he stumbled through his words like a drunk. Then Jacob had a knife to his throat and that voice in his ear and he found that he couldn't give two shits about who 'he' was.

"So seein' as I'm paying up here Clark, doing my duty, isn't it fair for you to do the same? We're some of the last threads of this Clark, though you bein' a weasel and everything you probably don't even have a clue what this is. Who knows though, one day you might just slip, say something you don't mean to, something that'd give it all away and then where would we be? So I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen. And I was the best! The second in command! The only one who could keep up! If it all has to end, why shouldn't I get to have a little fun?"

So Jacob Clark prepared for the worst. Breath heaving from his nostrils, sweat pouring down his face, Jacob accepted that he was not a hero. He had lost his chance to be the good guy who got out of the jam and got the girl. Now he was going to die, painfully and slowly it seemed, at the hands of a crazed ex-soldier with some kind of twisted survivor's guilt. The knife blade moved to the crook of his arm and oh this was going to hurt-

The door to the basement/bunker burst open, revealing a silhouette surrounded by glaring, heroic artificial light and _Jacob Clark's life was officially a B-movie good lord._

While Jacob shot up about a foot into the air, Tiger-man didn't so much as twitch, just stood slowly with a blank face that melted into the _creepiest_ villain-grin Jacob had ever seen when he caught sight of who was in the doorway. The man standing there was a walking oxymoron. Jacob was thankful to see that there was now a gun pointed at Tiger-man's head, but the man holding it was the most unassuming heroic lead that he had ever seen. He was a bit shorter than crazy-eyes, and was wearing a _jumper_ of all things underneath his leather shooting jacket. If the new arrival's eyes hadn't been pure, almost desperate determination, Jacob might've been more worried for him.

"Why if it isn't the upstanding Doctor Watson." His captor's voice was candied arsenic as he made a mock bow toward the barrel of jumper-man's gun.

"Moran." the doctor's voice was blank, permafrost in the face of an inferno. So he was _Moran _then. Jacob instantly disliked the name.

"I have to say Doctor, I'm impressed. Always knew you had to have more brains on you than the boss gave you credit for. How'd you find me, hmm? Your detective treat an old dog a few new tricks before he took the plunge?" Watson's grip on the gun tightened, but other than that his eyes remained icy, hollow.

"It wasn't difficult, Moran. Without a master pulling your strings you get a little… sloppy." Moran gave another deranged chuckle, striding behind Jacob's chair until he was leaning on its left side, playing with the knife in his hands.

"So to what do I owe the pleasure dear Doctor? You were a soldier once too," Jesus did everyone in the army turn to the underground crime circuit when they were discharged? "Did your dear detective leave you one last mission as well?" Watson's gaze hardened further, positively arctic where he glared. Jacob wondered briefly who this detective was to this man. "Or are you just taking up the mantle? Saving poor sods like this one," A clawed hand sunk into his shoulder and Jacob winced violently. "Let me save you the trouble, Doctor, this guy here's not worth your time." But the doctor's icy glare didn't so much as twitch. His gun stayed trained on Moran, right between the eyes. "Come now, Watson! You know you're not going to shoot me! I'm unarmed! Well, near enough. And didn't you take some oath? Do no harm or some shit like that? Clark here'll be my last bit, I swear by it." He gestured at Jacob with the knife, and Watson's eyes followed the movement for a fraction of a second. "You and I have a lot in common you know, Watson. Left behind and everything. We should commiserate! The weasel will just take a second, faster than a leap off a building, quick slice then it'll all be-"

Jacob had closed his eyes. Had tried to shut out the glint of the blade in the lamplight and tried to be thankful that at least now it'd be quick, and oh how glad he would be that he did. The rest of his life he would be thankful that he had shut his eyes just in time to avoid seeing the bullet tear its way straight through Moran's chest. The shot was deafening in the small room, and the thud of the body hitting the ground even more so. Jacob kept his eyes tightly shut until calloused hands began to remove the tape from his face, not gently exactly, more clinical. And what were his first words in this nightmare of a room? What exactly did Jacob Clark say to his daring rescuer?

"_You_ were a _Doctor_?" The exclamation was loud, the visage gaping, and the thoughtless moment was a good summary of Jacob's entire life and what had brought him to this very room. He winced almost as soon as the sentence left his mouth, but the doctor-soldier in front of him gave a tired smile. It ached with a cold sadness that Jacob had never known and god willing wouldn't ever experience. Doctor Watson's gaze went hazy and faintly amused as he mumbled,

"I had bad days."

* * *

John sank onto the barstool like it was an armchair, rolling his shoulders and sighing as he set his cane off to the side. He flagged down the bartender for a pint and ran his hands through his hair, acutely aware of the warmth of his gun against his lower back. It was done. Moran was dead. His self-set goal for the last three months was set and done.

How anticlimactic it had all been.

John sat nursing his beer, and for the first time in a long while, he let himself feel tired. He had been tired for weeks, could feel it seeping into his bones and trying to weigh him down, but he had pushed through the sleepless nights and early mornings with a single-minded determination. Now who did that sound like? He wasn't an idiot, despite what some have said. He knew that his obsession wasn't healthy and that he had to let himself grieve, and he had. He had mourned as he poured over blurry security footage, had probably gone through the denial-acceptance phase sometime between calling in favors to old friends in the army, he had grieved. He was still grieving.

Another gulp of his drink burned down his throat and the memory of that final shot seared in his eyes. Despite what occurred, John maintained in his inner monologue that he had not intended to kill Moran when he found him. In his mind he reasoned that this was almost like the cabby that first night, killing for a man he barely knew because he was in danger and that was good enough for John. This time though, even if Clark was the one with a knife to his throat, John had killed for the same man. That, he knew, was probably the definition of revenge and the opposite of healthy, but he _had not_ _intended_ to kill Moran. It may not have made sense to anyone else but when John saw that knife going for Clark's throat, when his finger pulled the trigger it had been to save the terrified man tied to a chair, but when the bullet had sunk into Moran's chest, _that_ had been for Sherlock. The rush it had brought, paling in comparison to seeing that thoughtful, impressed look in grey-green eyes, had still echoed of the life he'd had with his detective. _His_ detective. That was a whole other hurt. He hadn't really been John's had he?

Rolling his shoulders one last time and rubbing at his aching thigh, John reached for his cane and hopped from his stool. He tossed some cash onto the counter and gave the bartender a nod before limping back into the rainy, streetlamp-yellow night. His self-reflection had taken a good two hours, and after untying Clark, making the man _swear_ not to tell anyone what had happened, and phoning the police from a payphone to give a tip on some gunfire in the warehouse where Moran still lay, it had already been midnight. Setting off in the direction of home, taking his time so as not to return to the gaping maw of the flat just yet, John had taken maybe three steps before a voice called after him.

"Doctor Watson." John glanced back over his shoulder, taking in the man who had stepped from the alley on the other side of the pub. He was just over John's height, dressed rather nicely for the hour in a dark suit and tie, and stood with a relaxed sort of casual readiness. His face was pure, blank professionalism and John had seen men like him before.

"CIA or FBI?" John sighed, turning to face the stranger.

"I'm not associated with-"

"You're wearing a perfectly pressed suit in an alley at 2:30 in the morning, have an American accent, and called my name like you expected me for dinner, who do you work for and what do you want." John really had no time for this man or his agenda. Though he strictly speaking had nowhere to be he'd rather just sit and relax with a cup of tea at home than deal with the spy-movie antics anymore tonight.

"I'm with a more focused division. Agent Phil Coulson, Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division."

"That's a-"

"Mouthful, yes. We believe you may be able to help us, Doctor Watson." And now John was uneasy. An agency like Shield looking for him, and this mild-mannered man with his calm voice didn't make John forget that Shield dealt with things like the alien invasion in New York a year before, could not bode well at all.

"Why on earth would you need my help?" Someone like- someone like Sherlock John could see getting propositions from not-so-secret agencies, but him?

"What do you remember of the incident in Afghanistan, Doctor Watson?" Johns blood ran cold, eyes widening as he gripped his cane with white knuckles. "We have your statement, and you don't need to worry about the gag order we have clearance to get around that." This wasn't right. John was never supposed to speak of this again; no one was ever supposed to bring it up. It was over, done, buried in a manila folder labeled classified next to his discharge papers. He had come home from Afghanistan for a bullet to the shoulder and a psychosomatic limp and trembling hands and _no one was supposed to bring it up again._

"I realize this must be difficult for you." John released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and met the calm, vaguely sympathetic gaze of the agent. "But something has happened. In South America. We believe it could be a repeat event."

"No." It couldn't be happening again. He was still reeling from the latest tragedy in his life; past hurts had no room in his heart anymore. He couldn't take it.

"You are the only eyewitness, Doctor Watson. Without your input we are nowhere closer to preventing this from happening again elsewhere."

"You already have my statement, you said so yourself."

"You know that isn't all you have to offer." Coulson's eyes flicked to where John's hand had crept to press against his thigh. Psychosomatic limp, his papers said.

"I'm not doing this. There's nothing I could give you that isn't in that report. I'll not be subject to any more interrogation. I've had enough already." John spun on his heel to stride away, feeling his heart thudding erratically and ignoring how his limp disappeared in the renewed surge of adrenalin. The grip on his cane was sweaty and cramping.

"What if I told you we know about Sherlock?" John froze so quickly he thought his heart might've stopped. He didn't turn around. Of course they knew about Sherlock, its not surprising even if they are American- "He's not dead, John."

"…What?" There wasn't hope. There wasn't _any _hope, John had _seen_-

"He's in Switzerland, last I heard. In hiding. Cleaning up the remnants of that kingpin, Moriarty's business. We've been keeping tabs ever since one of our agents figured out Moriarty was manipulating a few world leaders." Something warmed in John's chest, just enough for his lungs to thaw and his throat to rasp out a few words.

"He's alive. You're not lying." And even racked with emotion the threat was clear in John's voice. If they were lying he would make them pay.

"Complete honesty, Doctor."

"…You'll take me to him?"

"Help us, Doctor, and eventually we'll bring him to you." John straightened from where he had slumped over his cane and turned to face the agent, new fire in his eyes and chin held high.

"When do we start?"


End file.
